1981 - Ibanez Destroyer II DT400 (explorer)
Dave Mustaine
According to an interview Dave gave at the 2015 NAMM, Dave Mustaine played a Ibanez Destroyer at the time he joined Metallica in 1981.
Our guess is that the guitar was brand new, since the Destroyer model was in fact released that same year following a lawsuit form Gibson against Ibanez for copying the design of their Explorer guitar.
We only found one picture of Dave actually holding the guitar, and it seems that his model was finished in cherry sunburst, and had a maple top on mahogany body, maple neck with dot inlays, as well as Ibanez Super 58 humbucker in the neck, and Ibanez v2 in the bridge.
It’s unclear what happened to this guitar in the post-Metallica period – he might’ve used it on some early Megadeth stuff, but we have no information that could point in that direction.
The DT400 is a Destroyer II series solid body electric guitar model introduced by Ibanez for 1981. It was made in Japan by FujiGen.
The DT400 features a flame maple top with cream binding on a mahogany body mated to a set-in 3-ply maple neck with a 22-fret rosewood fingerboard with binding and pearloid dot position markers. Components include a Gibraltar fixed bridge, Quik Change tailpiece, a pair Ibanez humbucking pickups with a covered Super 58 at the neck and an uncovered V2 with white bobbins at the bridge, Sure Grip knobs, and Smooth Tuner II machine heads. The output jack is mounted on the side of the guitar.
For 1982 the body material was changed from mahogany to basswood and the fretboard inlays were changed to pearloid and abalone split blocks.
The DT300 is a related model without the flame maple top and with a different neck pickup, dot fretboard inlays and chrome hardware.
This DT400 was discontinued after 1982. It was replaced for 1983 by the DT500 which is similar, but has an integrated bridge.
